Many industries such as aquaria, aquaculture, wastewater, and pools and spas rely on “clean” water for their proper operation. In these industries, “clean” is defined as water that is low in nutrients (e.g. Inorganic Nitrates, Inorganic Phosphates, Nitrites, Ammonia, Ammonium, and metals such as Copper). These nutrients cause problems in water such as excessive algae and bacteria growth, and in some cases, poisoning of livestock. In these instances, algae disperse in the water in an uncontrolled manner thereby making algae removal difficult. Thus, in these industries there is a desire to remove nutrients and associated algae from the water to maintain “clean” water.
Despite the desire to remove nutrients and algae from water for certain applications, many industries rely on the presence of nutrients in the water for success. For example, food and biofuel industries grow algal biomass to produce their final products. This algal biomass requires a constant supply of nutrients to grow. Thus, there is a need for an algae scrubber that both filters the water of nutrients to provide clean water and promotes controlled growth of algal biomass such that the algae can be easily and efficiently harvested or otherwise removed from the water.